Sept. 5, 2015

“An 1895 reporter found (Salem) town residents reluctant to talk about the past.

“When they did, it was to impress upon him that they had not burned a single witch. Years later Arthur Miller met with the same silence while researching The Crucible. ‘You couldn’t get anyone to say anything about it,’ he complained of 1692….

“When (an archivist) began an excavation of the parsonage site in 1970, two elderly sisters waved fists at him from across the way…. ‘What are you bringing this up for?’ they demanded….”

– From “The Witches: Salem, 1692” by Stacy Schiff (due Oct. 27)

Schiff has a lengthy related piece in the current New Yorker.

April 11, 2014

“It may be hard for you to own the fact that you were duped by therapists and prosecutors, as well as misled by your own naivete about childhood sexuality. While it may be difficult now to acknowledge your five-year-long wrong, it will be far worse if your children have to do it for you, and far worse for you and your children to have history indict you as an unrepentant bearer of these terrible false accusations.

“A place for you in history is already assured. What history finally writes about you now depends on you….”

– From “An Open Letter to the Accusing Parents in the Little Rascals Child Abuse Case” by Raymond J. Lawrence in Contra Mundum (Oct. 1, 1993)

Will even one Edenton parent ever heed Lawrence’s call to “to undo this elaborate fabrication that has caused years of suffering to so many”? What would it take to remove the blinders, to accept responsibility and to separate yourself from the true believers?

June 29, 2012

“One month after drawing national attention when she dismissed final charges involving the children at the day-care center, (Nancy Lamb) clings to her belief that Robert Kelly is a child molester….

“Still, she admits it’s not easy to explain why none of the defendants have turned against each other, even though they were offered deals by her office.

“ ‘You did have kind of a group dynamic going on where they did hang around together and support each other and encourage each other to hang tough,’ Lamb said.”

– From the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, July 2, 1997

April 25, 2016

“Prosecutors wield extraordinary, unparalleled, and unchecked power. ‘They alone decide who to prosecute for criminal offenses, what charges to bring against them, and what punishments to seek,’ as the National Registry (of Wrongful Convictions) says. ‘In practice, that power extends to convicted defendants as well. If a sitting prosecutor asks the appropriate court to vacate the judgment and dismiss the charges against a defendant … it will happen.’

“But this requires political will. And too often, the will is not there. As (Keith Hampton, attorney for Fran and Dan Keller) notes, convincing a prosecutor that an injustice has happened can be a tough pull: ‘Unless you have DNA – unless you get the DA completely cornered – there are no profiles in courage out there,’ he says.

“Still, the number of exonerations in cases where no crime was actually committed are on the rise – so at least in some jurisdictions, individuals aren’t forever left in the kind of limbo in which the Kellers find themselves. The National Registry includes 540 exonerations in no-crime cases, including 51 exonerations in child sex abuse ‘hysteria’ cases (including Bob Kelly and Dawn Wilson)….”

– From “Convicted of a Crime That Never Happened: Why Won’t Texas Exonerate Fran and Dan Keller?” by Jordan Smith at the Intercept (April 8)